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The US is not a good comparison because the house sizes are just ridiculous – and those huge houses are just as out of reach for most "common" people and are r
by Sharlin 5y ago
The US is not a good comparison because the house sizes are just ridiculous – and those huge houses are just as out of reach for most "common" people and are rapidly getting even more out of reach because they never were sustainable at all! But there’s a spectrum between 40m2 highrise flats and 800m2 single-family McMansions.
- refurb 5y agoNot at all. Get outside the big cities and houses are very affordable. We’re talking 120m^2 homes for under $200k.
- thex10 5y agoYeah, but then I'd have to buy a car and drive it to get simple basic tasks done.
- nitrogen 5y agoThat's kind of the whole point. People want that.
- halostatue 5y agoDo they? Or are the places that people can afford constrained to offer that, making them think that what they can afford and what they _want_ are the same thing? I live in a reasonably walkable section of Toronto, but I still need a car for some of what I do (if I got a bike trailer, I could reduce that need to a larger degree than I already have, but public transit where I live is suboptimal for short trips and doesn’t go everywhere we want). I could not now afford the house I bought twelve years ago because the market has gone crazy (we estimate we could get 3–4x what we paid for the house—but then we’d have to find a place to live), especially for the more walkable sections of the city. I _want_ more walkable, transit-able, and bikeable parts of the city. I also want it to be more affordable to more people in the city, because I don’t particularly want to force people to have 2 hour commutes into the city because they think they want more space, but in order to have more space they have to move where nothing is as reachable as it is here.
- thebradbain 5y agoIs that why real estate in dense, walkable cities/neighborhoods is the most expensive in the country? No one is saying get rid of suburbs. They’ll always be in the US. But when 95%+ of zoning laws make it so suburban sprawl is the _only_ thing that can get built, then you’re taking a choice away from the people who want to live in cities.
- q3k 5y agoThere's more choice than just 'megacity and walk everywhere' and 'bumfuck nowhere and drive everywhere'. Small/medium towns with a fairly dense downtown/market square exist, and while yes, it's more useful to own a car there than in a large city, you still can get tons of things done by walking, biking or taking a bus. Random example: Alsfeld, Germany, population 16,901. A 1900s house (3br, 120m^2, downtown) 180kEUR [1]. Within walking distance: daycare, multiple doctors/dentists/pharmacies, restaurants, stores... and a train station with an hourly regional train. [1] - https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/130222273 https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/130222273
- ChrisLomont 5y agoMedian house size is > 2000 sq ft, so common people are buying large houses. They're certainly not out of reach. The US has (except maybe Australia) the largest median house sizes on the planet. Home ownership has bounced between 63% and 69% for over 50 years, and is currently rising again. What force makes a smaller home sustainable but a larger one not sustainable?
- bart_spoon 5y ago800m2 is 8600 square feet. Thats easily less than 1% of houses in the US. The average house in the US probably less than 2500 sqft (232 m2).